In the Kitchen: Buffalo Chicken Dip

So freakin’ tasty it should be illegal? YES.
So messy it should be illegal? YES.

So here, you see, is my conundrum. There is no way to be able to indulge in the amazingness of wings and retain a single iota of my refined ladylike ways… Oh wait, me? Ladylike? Pbbbbbfffft HA! Who am I kidding, I can’t even say that with a straight face. For realsies, I’m just a weenie and hate to eat messy food.

I was wasting my evening researching ways to better my homemaking skillz on Pinterest one night when I came across a link for buffalo chicken dip. The manfood gods answered my prayers for a socially acceptable, lady-friendly way to enjoy one of the finer guilty pleasures in life. The original recipe was from Allrecipes.com, but of course I can’t just leave it alone so I tweaked it a little and ended up with one helluva good dip.

Make it. Eat it. Love it. Enjoy.

Here's your "before" shot. I would've taken an "after" shot, but I was too busy eating it all up.

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the chicken to the pot and boil over medium heat for 30 minutes, or until fully cooked. Remove the chicken from the water and let cool for 30 minutes, and shred with a fork. You should have about 4 cups of shredded chicken.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On the stovetop while the oven heats, add the shredded chicken and hot sauce to a skillet over medium heat. Stir to coat chicken and cook until heated through. Add the cream cheese and dressing and heat through, stirring frequently until the cream cheese is melted and fully incorporated into the chicken mixture. Add the cheddar cheese to the chicken mixture and stir to combine.

3. Transfer the mixture to a 2 quart baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake 20 minutes, or until bubbly and hot.

4. Let stand for at least 15 minutes before serving. Serve warm with celery sticks, carrot sticks, tortilla chips, crusty bread and/or crackers. Or just take a spoon and eat it straight from the dish. I won’t judge, I promise.

* You can add a few teaspoons of salt or chicken bouillon to the boiling water if you want to enhance the flavor of the chicken.

* If you’re waist-watching, use neufchatel or low fat cream cheese. Don’t be afraid to use low fat or fat free dressing. If you aren’t a huge fan of blue cheese, use ranch dressing instead (as called for in the original recipe). On a side note, my husband gags at the thought of blue cheese, but he gobbled up the dip like it was nobody’s business. Either he’s called a truce with his lifelong hatred of blue cheese or it was just that good (or, as he said, it doesn’t really taste “blue cheesy” enough to bother him).

* After baking, a little bit of reddish oil rose up to the top of the dip. I just took a napkin and blotted most of it up, and whatever I couldn’t get out I stirred back into the dip before serving. After a little reading, I discovered that the oil is from the shredded cheddar. I suppose if you want to avoid it looking oily you can leave the cheddar out without compromising the deliciousness of the dip. If anyone makes it sans-cheddar, let me know how it turns out!

*This dip can be stored in the fridge (and sampled liberally) for 4 to 5 days. I can’t attest to its shelf life beyond that, because it was gone before it had a chance to become inedible.

* My bad for not taking a “prepared” shot. If you want to know what it looks like prepared, you can Google Image search “buffalo chicken dip“. Or you can take my word for it when I say that it looks very gobble-worthy.